Builders Are Finishing More and More Homes
With an increasing number of homes being completed and uncertainty about the future of interest rates, builder confidence has decreased, prompting many to scale back on starting new projects. Nevertheless, single-family housing starts remain nearly 18% higher than last year’s rate. In contrast, construction of buildings with five or more units is down almost 33% from a year ago, largely due to the significant number of apartment buildings already being completed and a slowdown in apartment rent growth.
According to Mortgage Daily News,
- Building Permits
- 1.44 million versus 1.48 million forecast and 1.467 last month
- Of that, 976k were single family permits and 408k were 5+ units
- Housing Starts (breaking ground phase)
- 1.36 million versus 1.42 million forecast and 1.29 million last month
- last month revised down from 1.32 million
- Of that, 1.031 million were single family and 322k were 5+
- Housing Completions
- 1.62 million versus 1.495 million last month, a 10.3 percent increase
- Of that, 1.092 were single family and 516k were 5+
We could attempt to over-analyze the month to month changes in this notoriously noisy data series, but in the bigger picture, permits and starts have been flat for more than a year while completions continue to improve.